1. Technical Field
The present application relates to an apparatus for the removal of bottles or containers from a bottle or container cleaning arrangement in a bottle or container filling plant. The present application further relates to an apparatus for the removal of containers from a container treatment plant.
2. Background Information
Background information is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily admit that subsequently mentioned information and publications are prior art.
In large beverage bottling plants, for example, it sometimes happens that individual containers must be removed or may be removed from the plant while the equipment is still in operation. Such an event can occur, for example, if a container becomes jammed or tips over and can then no longer be transported or processed. One potential application is container cleaning plants such as bottle rinsing plants, for example. In these plants, the bottles to be rinsed are delivered via a plurality of conveyor lines and are then divided among a plurality of parallel or substantially parallel inlet guides of the rinsing plant. In the vicinity of these inlet guides, in which the containers from the transport lines are fanned out on the guides, the bottles, which are standing upright, bump into one another and are not always or substantially always distributed uniformly, as a result of which individual bottles can fall over. In that case, they lie in front of the guides, where they can disrupt operations. Because such plants are generally very wide, the fallen containers are directly accessible without shutting down the plant from the outside, in the peripheral area. Slowing down the plant to remove the disruption can lead to failures of the overall plant and thus to lost production and increased costs.
In some systems for the removal and outward transfer of bottles, the bottles which are transported in an upright position in rows or lanes, as well as defective bottles, are picked up by a detection device and transferred outward by means of a transfer channel and a pusher from the stream of containers. Some devices are suitable for the detection and removal of bottles that have fallen over in such a lane. In some detection systems, a stationary pusher and a transfer channel work together to eject the fallen bottle laterally from the transport lane.
These systems, which are effective and have been operational for some time, have the disadvantage that they may only be used for the removal of bottles from individual lanes, because space for the removal must or should be provided immediately or substantially immediately next to the lane.